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  Method and apparatus for analysing sound- converting sound into informationUSPTO Application #: 20070299671Title: Method and apparatus for analysing sound- converting sound into information Abstract: The present invention provides means of identifying a sound or acoustic event and converting this into suitable information for the user. This may be used for remote monitoring, for defense, for health applications, and for helping hearing impaired people for identifying the sounds. The system may also be used by a user for source of sound authentication/identification system and method, in which authentication of a user (if the purpose) is performed by verification of the voice of the user representing his or her biometrics, unique to a desired user. The audio data is not required to be stored for the purpose, instead the statistical properties of the temporal and spectral/wavelet coefficients or the weights of the trained neural network thus ensuring security of the data and small size of the stored data making it suitable for applications such as smart cards. The system is able to function in high noise environment, and when there may be multiple events overlapping. (end of abstract) Agent: Ms Ruchika Kapur C/o Sanjiv Kapur - Gulf Breeze, FL, US Inventors: Neil M. McLachlan, Dinesh Kant Kumar USPTO Applicaton #: 20070299671 - Class: 704500000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Data Processing: Speech Signal Processing, Linguistics, Language Translation, And Audio Compression/decompression, Audio Signal Bandwidth Compression Or Expansion The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070299671. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
[0001] This application claims the priority benefit of foreign (Australia) application--AU 2004901712, filed on 31.sup.st Mar., 2004, the contents of which are hereby by reference. [0002] The present invention relates to the field of identification acoustic events and converting these into other forms of signals with the aim of helping people with hearing impairments. Alternatively, this could also be used for remote monitoring of a space for defense or security applications. [0003] In one form, the invention relates to the analysis of sound to identify events that can be recognized by sound or vibration. The present invention relates to sound analysis and classification where the sound may be below the hearing ability of the user, or may be at a remote location from where the user is unable to listen to the sound. While the applications may be very wide, the specific application discussed in this document is when this enhances the capability of the hearing impaired, or for the elderly, or for security. [0004] It will be convenient to hereinafter describe the invention in relation to acoustic event identification, however it should be appreciated that the present invention is not limited to that use only. BACKGROUND ART [0005] Hearing is one of the very important sensory inputs to us human. But for the people who are hearing impaired from birth, or have progressively had a reduction of their hearing abilities due to ageing and other reasons, the lack of ability to hear well is always an impediment. To overcome this shortcoming, hearing aids, and hearing aiding implants have been developed and are extensively used. But there are number of shortcomings with these systems such as convenience, lack of clarity, and lack of directionality of the source of sound. [0006] Numbers of techniques are being used to improve the output of the hearing aids and similar devices. But despite the advances, it is important for the user to wear the device which is often not very convenient. What this invention is doing is identifying some of the important sounds and acoustic events that may be critical for the user, and then informing the user of these events in alternate ways. [0007] In our modern life, the ability to hear is very critical for our safety also. Number of equipments in and around the house interacts with the user by giving audio alarms and other sounds. These include devices such as the kettle when the water boils, the oven at the end of the cooking cycle, the door bell when someone is at the door, the telephone, the smoke alarm, to name a few. While each of these devices can often be fitted with an alternate output that maybe suitable for the hearing impaired, this would require customization. It would also reduce the ability of the user who would either have to keep wearing the hearing aid, or would have to look at the device for the visual or similar information/alarm. [0008] To identify the acoustic event or the sound, it is essential for the computer (or other) equipment to identify the event even when there are other sounds present, often with overlap. The computer classification of sound has been researched by parties interested in environmental acoustic logging, automated logging of music databases according to instrumentation, machine monitoring, military and other surveillance and speaker recognition systems. [0009] The present inventors have identified that the most common approaches have been to apply statistical distance measures to band-limited or STFT (Short Time Fourier Transform) spectral data or cepstral coefficients. This approach has a number of disadvantages, such as the use of static spectrum for non-stationary signal, and the assumption that the difference between the signals is located in the higher energy content of the signal. [0010] The inventor has also identified that heuristic methods have also been attempted for environmental sound analysis. To date few commercially viable products exist for these applications apart from relatively simple examples of machine monitoring which suffer from the disadvantage that these require extensive examples and supervision and require the source properties to be reasonably well known. [0011] The inventor has also identified that speech (phoneme) recognition is another field in which many products are commercially available. In this field the range of sounds is restricted to the phonemes of a given language. These techniques use a combination of the spectral and temporal properties of the signal and STFT and wavelet analysis are commonly used to generate the time varying spectral data for classification by neural nets. Under good acoustic conditions these techniques can achieve accuracies of greater than 95% where a single person is speaking but tend to have a relatively lower accuracy when multiple persons are speaking. Thus, the practical implementation of this technology in an outdoor or acoustically complex environment is considered to be very limited. [0012] The inventors have also identified that many prior art systems have a model-based approach to speech analysis. In these methods and systems, they base the analysis on making a mathematical model of the source and then determine the properties of the source that produce the sound. Examples are in automobile noise emission studies, and in human voice based Structured Audio (MPEG 2 and 4) or Linear Predictive Source Modeling used for mobile telephone compression. This model approach is considered to suffer from problems that the model of the source should be deterministic. This model is suitable for sound approximation and provides good compression but is not suitable for sound source authentication nor for sound classification. [0013] Any discussion of documents, devices, acts or knowledge in this specification is included to explain the context of the invention. It should not be taken as an admission that any of the material forms a part of the prior art base or the common general knowledge in the relevant art in Australia or elsewhere on or before the priority date of the disclosure and claims herein. [0014] An object of the present invention is to provide an improved sound classification and recognition method and system. [0015] A further object of the present invention is to alleviate at least one disadvantage associated with the prior art. [0016] A further object is to identify the common sounds in the household that require the attention of the occupant of the user, and with the help of a portable vibrator that is worn in a necklace or belt or similar object by the user, be informed of the event. SUMMARY OF INVENTION [0017] The present invention provides, in one aspect, a method of and apparatus for identifying the source of sound or other similar signals by the use of statistical descriptions of the time, frequency analysis coefficients of the signal or a section of the signal. [0018] The present invention provides a method of and apparatus for analyzing sound including the steps of providing a sample of sound, applying time-frequency analysis methods such as wavelet transforms or STFT, statistically analyzing the time-frequency coefficients, and defining the classes of sounds being analyzed using Neural Networks or statistical methods for the purposes of verifying the sound source. If required the method normalizes the amplitude of the sound samples before undertaking the time-frequency analysis. The statistical analysis of the time-frequency coefficients provides coefficients related to the time-averaged energy content within each frequency band and the range of energy fluctuation over the length of the sample within each frequency band. [0019] The present invention also provides a method of and apparatus for analyzing sound, including the steps of providing a sample of sound, statistically analyzing the sample, and classifying the analyzed sample according to a band or bands of time-frequency coefficients that lie within a predetermined magnitude range. The selection of both the time-frequency coefficients used for the classification and the magnitude range in which these coefficients will be found for particular sound classes are iteratively determined during training of the system. [0020] The present invention also provides a method of and apparatus for recording the sounds that require the attention of the user, including the steps of analyzing or identifying a sound sample as disclosed herein, comparing the analyzed sample against a reference sample, verifying whether or not the sound sample is substantially the same as the reference sample. [0021] The present invention also provides means of changing the false positives and false negatives of the identification and thus provides means of selecting this choice with the help of supervisor information of the level of urgency required by the event. [0022] Other aspects and preferred aspects are disclosed in the specification and/or defined in the appended claims, forming a part of the description of the invention. Continue reading... Full patent description for Method and apparatus for analysing sound- converting sound into information Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Method and apparatus for analysing sound- converting sound into information patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. 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